Roborace, the world’s first driverless electric racing competition, is set to take place on the Autosport Stage at Autosport International 2018. Visitors will have an opportunity to get close to Roborace’s autonomous “Robocar” during the event.
Roborace is a platform for the development of autonomous technology in an extreme environment and educates the public about the benefits and safety of these technologies when they make it onto our roads at scale.
Created by the automotive futurist who designed the vehicles in Hollywood movies such as “Tron” and “Oblivion,” Roborace’s autonomous Robocar is designed to show clearly that there is no human driver in the vehicle.
Weighing just over 1,000 kg, it boasts four 300-kW motors – one at each wheel to allow torque vectoring – making the car capable of speeds over 200 mph (320 kph).
Roborace will complement existing racing that uses human drivers – such as FIA Formula E. It will provide an environment to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology for road vehicles at a faster rate than they can be developed on regular roads.
Roborace gives organizations developing driverless technologies an extreme yet safe environment to test their software and hardware, pushing them to the limits of their capabilities. Robocar’s Nvida Drive PX2 GPU “brain” is capable of up to 24 trillion AI operations per second.
Autosport International Show Director Kate Woodley said, “We are delighted to have Roborace join us on the Autosport Stage at Autosport International. Roborace’s 200-mph Robocar has turned heads from the second they launched the project, and it will be very exciting for everyone visiting the show to see what is surely the pinnacle of AI driving capability. We love racing in all its forms and Roborace is a great example of how to push the limits of this new autonomous technology and make it relevant to the track and to the road.”
Lucas Di Grassi, CEO of Roborace, said, “It’s a pleasure to bring Robocar to the Autosport Stage. Roborace is the first and only competition series in the world for autonomous driver technologies and is therefore an important part of the motorsport world. Autosport International gives us the opportunity to meet visitors and introduce them to the incredible possibilities of autonomous technology and the very real application it will have to their own road cars in the coming years.”
